


Paints and Crayons

by Maggie_GoldenStar1530



Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Art, Din Djarin Is A Good Dad, Finger Painting, Gen, Mandalorian Culture, Parental Bonding, Single Parent Din Djarin, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, arting with kids, fluffernutter, fluffy af, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:21:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26552758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maggie_GoldenStar1530/pseuds/Maggie_GoldenStar1530
Summary: Din is worried that the Baby doesn't have enough enrichment. So he buys some art supplies.
Relationships: Baby Yoda & The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)
Comments: 17
Kudos: 288





	Paints and Crayons

Din Djarin wasn’t unfamiliar with the raising of children. While the bulk of his responsibility to the Covert was as a provider, he had done his time watching the children in the creche, handling the occasional squabble, and other points of childcare. Raising children was a group activity, and while each child had (or should have had) a primary parent, it was the duty of every person in the Tribe to take a hand in helping out. 

But the finer details had never trickled down to him. Sure he could change a diaper, feed a kid, find a toy. He knew that most kids liked to be read to, and they liked stories, and songs. But suddenly becoming a primary caregiver, and mostly without support? 

That was stressful. 

So he did what he had done as a Foundling when confronted with the need to learn a lot of information in a short amount of time. He got books, and he studied. He got books on child development, and parenting, and alien physiology (he wasn’t sure if that would be useful or not, but figured that more information was better in this case). He would occasionally peruse parenting boards on the Holonet for advice; never asking questions of course, that could be a trail, but reading and discarding advice was one way to pass the time in hyperspace jumps. 

Trying to figure out how to apply parenting advice to a 50 year old wizard baby was a challenge. He started by keeping notes -triple encrypted, in code- of everything from word acquisition (started slow, but once the Baby seemed to understand that he was safe, he would chatter away) to what the Baby would and would not eat (fresh seafood was a favorite, fresh meat was good, fruit was okay, ration bars were tolerated, bread got thrown), how much sleep anyone got (those numbers were depressing). 

But as the Baby got more comfortable, and he got more interested in things around him, it was clear he needed more enrichment than a small metal ball. Or, Din thought guiltily, parking him in front of holovids. 

The Baby had liked playing with the other kids on Sorgan, but that wasn’t really an option. The books suggested educational toys, but he really didn't have a lot of room for some of the things advertised. Hell, a lot of those things were huge, and expensive, and looked like they’d break quickly. 

But he remembered that sometimes he would get a message from the Covert asking to bring back paper, and markers, and paints, if he could find them cheaply. That would be good for his development, right?

The next mid-sized market town they stopped in was large enough to boast a shop that had all sorts of art supplies. Din frowned to himself, tallying up the credits he could spare… and added another ten to the amount, if he got the cheaper ration bars for himself… 

The Baby peeped out of his carrier, one ear raising as he considered all the mess-making implements in front of him. So many options!

Din picked out a few pads of various sizes of paper, and some crayons. They wouldn’t dry out (he’d been on the receiving end of more than one request to bring back markers after one child or another had left them all uncapped) and the crayons came in multiple sizes. The Baby blinked, then made an inquiring chirp at finger paints. 

Din reflexively thought no. Of course not. The MESS. 

But, he looked down at the Baby, and the Baby looked up at him, hopefully. Din sighed. It would be a mess, but the paints said they were water soluble, he had a sonic refresher, and finger painting might be a bit easier for the baby than crayons. He’d liked smearing mud around on Sorgan, what was this but colored mud?

Well, Din thought three hours later, looking at the walls of the hold, now smeared finger painting, but only half a meter high, it was more colorful than just the mud. 

But the Baby was laughing and seemed to be pretty happy. 

It took a couple of tries to get him to see what the crayons were for. Finally Din pulled out the small table that folded down from the side, set the Baby on the crate he’d been using a seat, and put a piece of paper and a few crayons in front of him. 

At first the Baby tried to eat the crayon, and the look of betrayal on his face was so hilarious Din had to excuse himself to the refresher to get control of his laughter. He tried not to laugh at the Baby, but sometimes he was just so _funny_.

Din came back to the Baby frowning at the crayon, like he knew he was supposed to be able to do something with it, but couldn’t quite figure out what. And he was looking between the crayon and the paper, frowning hard.

_Oh._

Din sat down at the table, and picked up another crayon and slid a piece of paper in front of him.

“Bah?”

“You draw with it. Like this.” Din drew a curving line red line on his paper. 

“Bah!” The Baby drew a line with his own blue crayon, then looked up for approval.

“Jate. Good. Like that.” Din drew a bit more, and the Baby carefully copied his movements. 

Din picked up a yellow crayon and drew a bit more, nothing specific, just abstract shapes. He could dimly recall drawing with his mother as a small child, Before. But After, there wasn’t much time or supplies for drawing. He’d gotten into trouble for sketching in the margins of his books, and after getting caught the third time, he’d made sure to carefully erase anything he drew. 

It wasn't that the Mandalorians didn’t appreciate art, his buir had explained. But those books needed to be passed on down, so it wasn’t fair to draw in them. His buir was able to sometimes sneak him some paper, once in a while, and he was able to use his abilities of drawing to sketch out good maps and floorplans to help with strategy. 

Sometimes he was able to snag a bit of paper, the end of a pad, a few pieces of butcher paper, to sketch on while spending endless hours in hyperspace. He liked drawing hands, especially. There was a galaxy‘s worth of hands out there. Faces, even those of aruetii, seemed rude to draw, but hands. Hands were fascinating. 

He found himself picking up a green crayon and sketching out the Baby’s hand, frowning to get the proportions and the angles right. The Baby looked over and his forehead wrinkled.

Din pushed the paper over, and pointed. “Look, that’s yours.” He took the Baby’s hand and put it next to the drawing. The size was off, and the proportions were mostly right, but… Din quickly shaded in the claws. “See?”

“Ohhhhhhhhhh.” The Baby cocked his head, considering, then pointed at it, and babbled a long string of sounds, ending in what clearly sounded like a question.

“Yeah,” Din said. 

The Baby stared at Din’s gloves for a long, long minute, muttering to himself, then shook out the whole box of crayons. Din almost stopped him, but the Baby was clearly doing something, and Din was curious to see where this would go. 

The Baby sorted through the crayons until he found what he was looking for: black, light brown, gray, and bright blue. Then he started to work. 

It did not look like a hand. Not at all. But the colors were more or less in the right spots, with the light brown coming out of the black in spikey shapes, then the gray over the top- it wasn’t very successful, but the idea was there- and then a blue scribble over the top. 

It didn’t look much like Din’s hand, but it _was_ Din’s hand. Din swallowed and nodded, as the Baby held up the picture for approval. “Jate, ad’ika.” He took the drawing. “Vor entye. Thank you.” 

The Baby smiled, took another piece of paper, and began to draw. 

The Baby’s first ever drawing was stuck to the wall of the sleeping compartment. Later it was joined by many others, even some of Din’s drawings. He still had to budget carefully for paper, and finger paints were only a special treat (especially after he found yellow three-fingered handprints all over his freshly cleaned cuirass).

“Someday, ad’ika, someday I’ll find a way to take you to an art museum…” 


End file.
